I am having a struggle in my game. I spoken a lot about, how I like to express my characters. Through personality. Through personal style. Through what they choose to wear, how they respond to people, what actions they take.

Problem is there is a constant war between Functionality and Visual Appealing in this game.

Currently Artair is wearing a Field Scribes outfit, I love it, plenty of pockets, looks like it has backpacks, and pockets. With a knit cap, some fashionable sunglasses, and a bandanna.

Problem is, and people stated this before, it seems like Armor pieces protect you more than the outfits do. And your outfits eventually get worn out to the point, your turning into a bullet magnet because it no longer protects you in the way armor pieces do.

I am glad they added armor pieces, please do not get me wrong when I say this. But visually, they are unappealing. Long Johns, Road Leathers, Harnesses, are outright generally ugly underneath armor pieces. And Armor pieces are not very unique at all.

They are visually unappealing to my taste and makes about any character who wears them, look like everybody else.

So, do I svck it up and put in Armor Pieces? Or continue to have him run around with an outfit, that looks like it works for the time. He's got two large backpacks, and a whole bunch of pockets. Which allows me some justifibility in his inventory space.

Or do I go to those ugly long johns and armor pieces?

Two things :

Don't style yourself on looking appropriate for the time. You're not trying to "fit in", you're there to put others to shame with your superior dress sense.

Secondly, T-Shirt and Slacks work as underclothes to Armour pieces, as does the BOS jumpsuit thing.

Fashion is not important, it is imperative!

Dress to kill and look fabulous whilst you do it!

I'll try to avoid spoilers, but there are ways to make some outfits better armor. To that end, I only wear the Atom Cats outfit, along with a Trilby and Patrolman Sunglasses. I'm sure when the mod kit comes out, other outfits and hats will be added to a certain list. At that point, I will change my hat, but unless something is added to the game I will always be Cool Cat.

I understand the struggle you speak of. A lot of the actually cool looking outfits in this game, you can't wear armor pieces over, and their damage resistance svcks. Then if you do wear clothing that allows armor pieces, your character gains 400 pounds and looks like the marshmallow man. Its frustrating. The only under outfits that don't make you look huge with armor pieces, is the vault suits and the BoS uniforms. But thats all I ever wear, and i'm getting tired of constantly going back to it.

One outfit I really liked, but have only ever found it once, is the Traveling Leather Coat. I think it looks awesome, but it has zero protection. Can't even get Ballastic Weave for it either.

I'm hoping there is some nice armor/clothing mods coming to the xbox one eventually.

I use a mod that lets me convert any armor piece into "Concealed" armor (invisible) or I could choose for a piece of Heavy armor to ~look~ like Light Armor, etc. And of course a mod that lets me wear armor pieces on top of anything, even outfits that normally do not support it (there might be clipping issues, but if the armor pieces are invisible, it hardly matters). I also have a mod that lets Synth armor look chrome. Normally I wear full Synth armor with all pieces invisible except the bracers (because they look like giant versions of Wonder Woman's bracelets, except for the annoying Pip Boy).

Fashion > All.

Well I don't understand why Bethseda didn't make it that Outfit Armor could also be upgraded and modified as well.

I hear you! Although I really like the look of almost all of the armor in Fallout 4, I run into this a lot with a lot of games. In truth, there's nothing to be done. I miss the wonderful "paper doll" systems of Daggerfall and Morrowind especially. You could even choose to have cloaks hood up or hood down, cape closed, over one shoulder, or thrown back. Shirts buttoned up, loose, unbuttoned, tucked in, shirt-tails hanging out, untucked. So cool! Beth fans loved this type of customization.

For the future, I hope they bring back the old multi-layered systems with a wealth of aesthetic options. No more "whole-body outfits". I'd put up with a little clipping here and there to be able to create really unique-looking characters. They've definitely improved the system since Skyrim. (Now, they just need to reign the artists in a bit. I love the caricatured weapons and armors, but I know many -- most in FO4's case -- do not.)

Who knows, maybe for TES VI...

I hear ya, but personally for my builds I prefer to have ballistic weave on some under garment, usually the military fatigues or minutemen outfit. Over top I wear leather and leather only. I like the shadowed leather the black looks great. And for this game especially the leather details and weathered details look fantastic compared to the armored pieces. If you look at leather pieces that are wet from rain or water you'll see the difference.

bethesda RPG problems 101

they rarely think about people doing actual role play in their games.

seriously you can generally only role play a fighter and variations of that, this is just a minor problem tied to the bigger problem.

Bethesda has it well thought out. They wan't you to match, so they give you ugly armor and under armor clothing to go with your ugly looking "assault rifles", laser guns, plasma guns, gauss rifles, etc.,

Of course FO:NV gave us cool looking and effective ranger armor, chinese stealth suits, BOS recon suits, etc., to go along with cool looking guns like the M1, All American, Ranger revolver, etc.,

I had this dilemma as well in my playthrough. I agree that the BOS field outfits were the coolest looking in the game. Especially the one that came after Scribe.

I feel that unique outfits like that shouldn't have low to no stats, and replace undergarments like long johns, but completely override all visual armor pieces from the neck down.

As far as the coolest actual armor combination, I found to be green shirt combat boots /w sturdy combat armor chest—reinforced or vanilla—with sturdy combat legs and wraparounds. No arms or helmet. That looked the most like what you see with real life mercs and special forces operatives.

I don't think any armor or clothing except PA has damage %. If that is what you mean by "worn out".

they need to do what SW: TOR did

every piece of armor has 3 mods :

- 1 mod handles armor value

- 1 mod handles S.P.E.C.I.A.L bonuses

- 1 mod handles Legendary bonuses

they need to handle this part of the game , alot of people enjoy to look good while having decent defense ratings

BoS uniform (any color) looks pretty good under Leather or Combat armor. But I would really like to try something else. I tried a character that wears no armor at all, just outfits. They didn't last very long (kind of like my character that only used pipe weapons).

Sometimes I'll use my companions as fashion models just to see how things look. Cait looked pretty BA in Raider Leathers and Metal Armor. At least it was different anyway.

http://orig05.deviantart.net/bc6e/f/2016/024/a/f/heavy_metal_cait_by_burhenn63-d9p7zyd.jpg

As in the Field Outfit I am wearing has

6 Defense

10 Rad Resistance

10 Energy Resistance

But!

the Armor pieces I am picking up are like

15

15

15

and

10

20

15

Versus the measely 6 defense I am getting. But I don't want those ugly chest piece. My outfit is so f-ing cool. He looks awesome.

Once you're high enough level I found that armour value didn't really matter all that much anymore, to be honest. I just stuck with the Minutemen Generals uniform. Obviously I could get better protection from armour sets or ballistic weave*, but ... meh. It makes sense that outfits aren't as good as actual protective wear. If it really bothers you I guess you could just take the Toughness perk for a little bit of an edge.

*I personally find Ballistic Weave to be one of the most cringey and unbelievable things in the whole series, haha. I don't know why I have such an issue with it. I just can't envisage anyone wearing a t-shirt or a suit and somehow being able to stop bullets. Even James Bond doesn't have a bulletproof suit!

I still think Outfits should be able to be upgraded at least a little bit. To make better. It's a ridiculous concept, when I find an outfit that looks like armor and I still cannot upgrade it.

Couldn't agree more about the BW. I also don't use Legendary items anymore due to not liking the 'Magical' effects added. I just drop all of them in a chest or sell them off, but never use them.

I do that too. Legendary armour pieces aren't so bad, but I just ... Why are my 10mm bullets magically exploding? How did my shotgun set that guy on fire?

It's definitely an issue that will go away when we have access to mods - you can make a mesh bikini with maxed out stats. (Not that I'd recommend it - but I like to wear leathers which aren't the most protective.)

In the meantime, if you're on PC, you could always play in God Mode if you want to dress on the wild side. As Pseron Wyrd says, it's impossible to cheat in a single player game.

The only issue have with BW is that I can't mod more with it...lol. Would love to apply that to the BoS uni.

I will agree that combat and metal armor looks terrible, but leather is another story. Leather armor actually looks really good, and doesn't get overly bulky like the other two.

Synth armor. I swear it looks like someone cut pieces out of plastic 5 gallon buckets and tied them together. How could they design something so terrible looking.

The only thing redeeming for the synth armor is the helmet, the rest is absolute garbage.

I feel you on this... There had been many times when I wanted to wear a specific outfit, but realized I'd be super soft if I did, even if I maxed out the physical defense perk. This is why I like the wardrobe feature in Guild Wars 2: You can make any piece of armor (light, medium, heavy) look like any other piece of armor of the same type that you have unlocked, and you can customize the colors of every piece.